Ravens Insider: Ravens’ Kyle Van Noy rips Chiefs training staff’s handling of eye injury: ‘Unprofessional’

[ExtremeRavens]

Ravens outside linebacker Kyle Van Noy hasn’t practiced since suffering an eye injury in Thursday night’s season-opening loss to the Chiefs in Kansas City. Tuesday, he re-emerged on his eponymous podcast with co-host and former NFL defensive tackle Gerald McCoy, wearing dark sunglasses and ripped the Chiefs for their handling of the injury.

While Ravens coach John Harbaugh declined on Monday to elaborate on Van Noy injury’s, the 33-year-old confirmed that he suffered a fractured orbital bone in his eye before criticizing Kansas City’s athletic training staff, calling the treatment he received at Arrowhead Stadium “unprofessional.”

“I was disappointed in the way the training staff of the Chiefs handled the situation,” he said. “I was supposed to see an ophthalmologist. They took an entire quarter to get down to talk to me in the locker room, which, to me, is unacceptable, because then you start thinking, ‘What if I was trying to go back in the game? What if i was really, really hurt?'”

Van Noy said the injury, which occurred early in the third quarter, happened when his helmet slipped under his chin strap as he ended up at the bottom of a pile with Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes and Ravens defensive tackle Nnamdi Madubuike. He said the top of the pad in his helmet jammed into his eye when he hit the ground with Madubuike on top of him.

“Your expectation of someone to be down there as the training staff asked them to be down there would’ve had a little bit more urgency and just the way it took time was super unprofessional to me,” Van Noy said.

A Chiefs spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday evening.

Van Noy added that he suffered a “pretty good fracture” and that the injury was “moderate.”

He also alluded to an NFL Players Association survey of Kansas City players conducted last season in which the Chiefs’ athletic training staff received a grade of “F.” According to the players union, Chiefs players feel the training room is “significantly understaffed, with only 43% of the team responding that they get an adequate amount of one-on-one treatment time.” Players feel the staff is unwilling to provide the necessary treatment to support recovery and performance, the union also said.

“With my experience I probably would’ve given them an ‘F’ too,” Van Noy said, adding that he went to the emergency room at the University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City and that they did a “great” job.

“If [the Chiefs] did have their hands on that, I do applaud them for that,” he said. “Everything went smoothly there. But before that happened, I thought that was kind of ridiculous.”

Van Noy, who signed a two-year contract extension in April after a career-high nine sacks last season, did not have a timetable for his return and said he is continuing to undergo testing with eye specialists.

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